Vermont Business MagazineWeekly unemployment claims increased last week to over 400 for the first time in many weeks. Claims had been falling steadily since early July. Claims also are lower than they were the same time last year, which has been the case for most weeks in 2017. For the week of October 14, 2017, there were 407 claims, 71 more than than they were last week and 164 fewer than they were a year ago.
Altogether 2,570 new and continuing claims were filed, an increase of 27 from a week ago, and 609 fewer than a year ago.
Claims during the summer usually hold at a relatively low level because of vacation hiring, until the next transition, which typically happens in September when school resumes. But claims this year did not experience that fluctuation, as hiring remains tight and the weather remains unseasonably warm.
The state also saves a lot of money in not having to pay out unemployment insurance claims.Businesses have seen their rates drop slightlyas the Vermont Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund remains flush.
On July 1, 2017, the state reduced taxable rates for individual employers according to their experience rating. The rate reduction cut the highest UI tax rate from 8.4 percent to 7.7 percent, and the lowest rate from 1.3 percent to 1.1 percent. Additionally, July 1 marked the sunset of a provision that required claimants to wait one week between the time they were determined eligible for benefits to when they could collect those benefits.
As usual, by industry, Services accounted for the most claims (60 percent of the total), as Manufacturing claims were nearly cut in half to fewer than 25 statewide.
The Department processed 0 First Tier claims for benefits under Emergency Unemployment Compensation, 2008 (EUC08).
Vermont's unemployment rate for September was 2.9 percent. This reflects a one-tenth drop from the revised August rate (3.0 percent), as all the major indicators improved.SEESTORY.
The Unemployment Weekly Report can be found at:http://www.vtlmi.info/. Previously released Unemployment Weekly Reports and other UI reports can be found at:http://www.vtlmi.info/lmipub.htm#uc
NOTE: Employment (nonfarm payroll)- A count of all persons who worked full- or part-time or received pay from a nonagricultural employer for any part of the pay period which included the 12th of the month. Because this count comes from a survey of employers, persons who work for two different companies would be counted twice. Therefore, nonfarm payroll employment is really a count of the number of jobs, rather than the number of persons employed. Persons may receive pay from a job if they are temporarily absent due to illness, bad weather, vacation, or labor-management dispute. This count is based on where the jobs are located, regardless of where the workers reside, and is therefore sometimes referred to as employment "by place of work." Nonfarm payroll employment data are collected and compiled based on the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey, conducted by the Vermont Department of Labor. This count was formerly referred to as nonagricultural wage and salary employment.
